The National Committee for Accreditation Program for Rectal Cancer (NAPRC) has named Dhanpat Jain, MD, Professor of Pathology and of Medicine (Digestive Diseases), to represent the College of American Pathologists on the NAPRC’s Quality Assurance Committee.
This is the second cancer, alongside breast cancer, for which there is national program that has developed comprehensive treatment standards. To achieve NAPRC accreditation, a rectal cancer program is evaluated against NAPRC standards to demonstrate the program’s compliance and commitment to providing high-quality rectal cancer care.
In his role on the Quality Assurance Committee, Dr. Jain, a nationally and internationally recognized GI pathologist, will represent pathologists to help the committee provide rectal cancer programs with the structure and modeling required to organize and manage a rectal center to ensure multidisciplinary, integrated, and comprehensive rectal cancer services.
The committee serves various roles, including:
- Establishing multidisciplinary teams and research-supported protocols
- Collecting data and tracking processes and patient outcomes
- Verifying adherence to evidence-based procedures including total mesorectal excision, pathological assessment, and MRI staging and reporting
The NAPRC was developed through a collaboration among the Commission on Cancer, a quality program of the American College of Surgeons, and the Optimizing the Surgical Treatment of Rectal Cancer Consortium, as well as the American College of Radiology, the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons, and the College of American Pathologists. It was formed to address the disparity in patient outcomes in the U.S. compared to Europe.
The NAPRC is based on successful international models that emphasize program structure, patient care processes, performance improvement, and performance measures. Its goal is to ensure that rectal cancer patients receive appropriate care through a multidisciplinary approach. One of NAPRC’s main requirements for maintaining accreditation is to have multidisciplinary teams that include a surgeon and representatives from pathology, radiology, imaging, and medical oncology.